


kiss you where it's sore

by somehowunbroken



Series: we're a fight waiting to happen [4]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Coming Out, Frottage, Internalized Homophobia, Light Angst, M/M, Making Out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-02-23
Packaged: 2018-03-14 17:39:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3419660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somehowunbroken/pseuds/somehowunbroken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"So are we gonna pretend that never happened?" Derek asks.</p><p>"I don't think that's actually possible," Dex mutters. "Chowder's not just going to forget."</p><p>"Just because he caught us doesn't mean we have to do anything," Derek says. "We tell him we tried it and it didn't work out. He'll be sad, but as long as we don't go back to trying to kill each other I think he'll get over it."</p><p>Dex doesn't say anything for a moment. "It's not that."</p>
            </blockquote>





	kiss you where it's sore

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ariadne83](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariadne83/gifts), [defcontwo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/gifts).



> hello yes, i am ki, and in a lot of fandoms i've been in, i was known as "the one who never stops writing smutty fic"
> 
> guess it was time
> 
> title from "better" by regina spektor.

"So," BItty says, more beaming smile than person at this point, "I see you two have finally figured out how to get along."

Derek shrugs casually, which takes a lot more effort than he'd like to admit to. "We got some figuring done, sure."

"Figuring," Dex mutters. He's sitting at the table next to Derek, and his good mood and confidence have apparently disappeared in the three minutes since Chowder found them. He's hunched in his chair, and he won't meet anyone's eyes. "That's - sure. Yeah."

Bitty plunks a plate of waffles in front of each of them. "I'm glad to hear that. Eat up, both of you, and if you want seconds, just holler and I'll come back down." He ruffles Derek's hair as he walks by, then takes a few extra steps so he can ruffle Dex's, too.

Chowder has the grace to wait until Bitty's out of the room if not out of earshot before saying anything. "You guys! You didn't tell me! I thought - but I'm so happy, sorry, you don't have to tell me, I'm just-"

"Chill," Derek says, raising an eyebrow. "Seriously, Chowder. Breathing is good for you."

"I'm just," he says again, and then gives them that patented Chowder beaming ray of sunshine smile. "I thought you guys were never going to get along! This is so great."

"I can feel you trying to make that text message smiley face with your actual face," Dex says dryly, uncurling a little so he can reach the syrup. He doesn't look at Derek, and something kind of turns sour in Derek's stomach. He's suddenly replaying an analysis of everything Dex has ever said about guys who like other guys, and he's coming up with a whole lot of shit he doesn't like.

"Hey, Chow," Derek says, going for casual. He's pretty practiced at it; at the very least, he's pretty sure Chowder doesn't notice the tension. "Not to, like, kick you out or anything, but-"

"Oh!" Chowder says, practically leaping out of his seat. "Yeah, sure, no problem. I'll go put something on TV. You guys have a good breakfast."

"Put something on that sofa before you sit on it," Derek calls after him. He's not sure if Bitty is right about the sofa being a biohazard, but this is definitely a time where better safe than sorry is applicable.

He and Dex eat in silence for a few minutes, but the longer they go without either of them talking, the more sure Derek is that this whole thing had been a huge mistake. One of them is going to have to bite the bullet and start the conversation, though, and it doesn't look like it's going to be Dex.

Derek sighs. "So are we gonna pretend that never happened?" he asks.

"I don't think that's actually possible," Dex mutters. "Chowder's not just going to forget."

"Just because he caught us doesn't mean we have to do anything," Derek says. "We tell him we tried it and it didn't work out. He'll be sad, but as long as we don't go back to trying to kill each other I think he'll get over it."

Dex doesn't say anything for a moment. "It's not that - I just-"

He stops, and Derek waits to see if he'll go on. When he doesn't, Derek grabs the syrup bottle and pours some onto what's left of his waffle just to give himself a minute. "I don't need a reason if you don't want to give one," he says finally. "I'll respect a 'no' on its own merits."

"Can we just," Dex says. "Waffles now, then talking?"

"Sure," Derek says. He can be agreeable. At least until he's given a reason to do otherwise.

Derek mostly just pushes his waffle around in the syrup; he'd poured too much on for him to actually be able to enjoy it. Dex finished his in record time and glances at Derek's, then up at his face, and Derek pushes the plate over at him before he asks. Dex flashes him a small and totally unfair smile, and Derek can't help but return it.

When Dex finishes a truly astonishing amount of syrupy waffles, he picks up both plates and puts them in the sink. He stays over there, hands braced on the edge of the sink as he stares out the window, and Derek refuses to let himself admire Dex's profile. Not until he's got some sort of handle on what the hell is going on.

"I can start," Derek volunteers. He's always been the instigator, he knows; he's the one who pushes Dex until he snaps back. He can be the one to open things up now, too. "I enjoyed the hell out of that, Dex. I'd like to enjoy the hell out of some other stuff, too, but if you'd rather not..."

"It's not that easy," Dex says quietly. He's still staring out the window. "You know, you - I never in my life thought about kissing a guy until the other day when I brought you that first pile of poetry crap. Not once."

Derek can't actually decide whether or not he's surprised. On the one hand, it makes a lot of sense that Dex, the super conservative ass who had apparently hated Derek just because he comes from money, could have gone his entire life without examining his sexuality. On the other hand, Derek can't imagine that kind of ignorance from someone with Dex's level of intelligence.

"You got hit and it was, well," Dex says. He's leaning over the sink now. "It was like... something tilted, or whatever. All of a sudden you _had_ to be okay, and _I_ had to make sure you were okay."

Derek's a little afraid to interrupt. This is definitely the most that Dex has ever revealed to him; he's starting to wonder if Dex has ever opened up to anyone like this before.

"Last night," Dex says, finally turning around to look at Derek. "You were hurting and you were out of it, and I thought, I thought - maybe I could see. Maybe I could just do a friend thing, help you out, and then just.." He sighs. "I don't know."

Derek nods, and Dex looks away again. "But then I woke up and you were right there. And it was way nicer than I was kind of hoping it would be." He laughs a little, but it sounds more exhausted than anything else. "If it had been terrible, I would've known how to deal."

There's a minute where neither of them says anything before Derek speaks up. "I hear you. I do, okay, and I get that things happen that maybe make things harder than they have to be, yeah?" Dex nods, and Derek goes on. "I'm gonna leave this ball in your court, okay? I'm around. I'm gonna be around. And you know where I stand."

Derek forces himself to get up and nod at Dex before sticking his hands into his pockets and making his way back to his dorm room. Alone.

-0-

Chowder brings Derek's work to his room the next two days. It's great to see him, and he makes Derek smile, but Derek finds himself vaguely upset anyway.

Whatever. He said what he had to say, and apparently he's got his answer. Time to forget it and get himself moving forward.

-0-

It's Saturday, which is great mostly because it means nobody's gonna bring Derek new work for a few days. He's pretty much caught up, which is what he gets for being bedridden and also really into his poetry readings. Hopefully he'll be cleared for class by Monday so he can start getting back to normal.

Derek pulls out his laptop so he can start outlining his midterm paper for Brit Lit (it's early, yeah, but he's superstitious enough to think that if he does enough of his work ahead of time it'll mean they'll make the playoffs). He's just booting up Word when there's a knock on his door.

"S'open," he calls. Bitty had promised he'd run over with pie at some point this afternoon, so when the door creaks its way open to reveal Dex, hands jammed into the pockets of his coat and looking distinctly uncomfortable, Derek's a little surprised.

"So," Dex says, walking in and shutting the door. "I've been thinking."

Derek keeps his hands on his keyboard. Part of him wants to reach out, pat the bed, do something like that, but the rest of him firmly reminds that bit of his brain that Dex is most likely here to give him the _it's not you, I'm just not into dudes_ speech.

"Congrats on that," Derek says, because it's easier, isn't it, easier to chirp and needle than it is to let his walls stay as far down as they've gotten.

Dex scowls, right on cue, but then shakes his head like he's trying to get Derek's words out. "Look, I - what I said, what I did the other day, it wasn't fair. And I came to talk and apologise and shit, and if you wanna chirp me for the rest of time - okay, well, I probably earned it. But."

"But," Derek echoes. "So I'll keep my trap shut until you're done. Got it."

Dex nods. He glances at Derek's bed and the very tips or his ears go pink, which is a really interesting thing that Derek's not letting himself consider too much. Dex turns a little and nods at Derek's roommate's bed. "Think I can sit on it, or will he get pissed?"

Derek shrugs a shoulder. It's sore, yeah, but he can tell he's healing. "Man, you've spent more time in here over the past week than he has all term. Have at it."

Dex nods and drops to the bed. He starts kind of petting at the duvet cover, like he's trying to smooth out the wrinkles. "So the other day I said I'd never thought about kissing guys."

"I remember," Derek says.

"I figured, okay, I figured I should probably take a look at that," Dex goes on. "And it's true, sort of. I haven't thought about kissing guys, but I've thought about, like, guys kissing."

Derek blinks. Then he blinks again for good measure. "I'm not seeing the difference."

"Like," Dex says, and now he's blushing full-force. The bruising on his face is healing but still present, and Derek's noticing how the blush makes the freckles on Dex's face pop. "Like, you know. Fantasies about other people that I'm not in."

"Oh. Those." Derek's got his own mental file of those, but honestly, the fact that it features people of all genders with each other had kind of clued him into his own not-straightness. "So you think about other guys kissing, but…?"

Dex shrugs and looks away for a minute, clearly trying to get his face to stop with all the blushing. "But I didn't - with myself in them - and then we kissed, and…"

"And," Derek prompts. _This trailing off shit has got to stop_ , something in his head says. Dex's confidence, his ability to speak his mind in any situation, that's who Dex _is_. His uncertainty here is a little scary, if Derek's being honest with himself.

"And now I keep remembering it," Dex confesses in a rush. He lifts his hand and touches a spot on his jaw. "I was all - from your face, you know?"

Derek swallows, eyes zeroing on where Dex is stroking his jaw a little. "Yeah. I remember that, too."

"I liked it," Dex says. Derek's eyes snap up to meet Dex's, and there, there it is, that confidence right back where it belongs. "I had stubble burn on my face, and when I got back to my room I kept poking at it to make it scrape a little, and then I-"

He breaks off, face going bright.

"You what," Derek says, demands, can't actually ask.

Dex shrugs a shoulder and squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. When he opens them back up, he smirks a little. "I jerked off," he says clearly, and that's it, okay, that's Derek's line.

He gets up off his bed and walks across the room. Dex spreads his legs a little so Derek can stand between them, and Derek's so glad that his roommate had lofted his bed, because there's no way he could lean down right now but he would've tried to anyway. He leans in but stops with his mouth an inch away from Dex's. He's close enough to count the little freckles dusted across Dex's nose and he wants to, wants to find the constellations in them, wants to reread mythology and make new patterns just for them.

"Does that mean you want to do this?" he asks.

"Yeah," Dex says, and Derek can feel Dex's breath against his lips, and god, he _wants_.

"For real, or for closets, or just for now?" Derek asks, because he needs to know, right now, if this is a one-time thing or if-

"I don't know," Dex says, and that right there, the honesty, that's what makes Derek crush their mouths together.

Dex gets his hands on Derek's hips as soon as Derek leans the rest of the way in, and he holds on tightly as their mouths slide against each other. Derek moves into him and from there it's a controlled fall down onto the bed, Dex steadying Derek while Derek leans one hand against the wall until he's straddling Dex on the bed. Dex squeezes his hips before sliding his thumbs beneath Derek's shirt, pressing at the knobs of his hips, and Derek sucks in a breath and jerks forward a little against Dex.

"Fuck," he chokes out, because the friction is great but his ribs hurt like shit. Apparently Dex can hear that all isn't well in Derek's voice, because he pulls his hands away from Derek's skin.

"How can we do this without hurting you?" he asks.

"Maybe," Derek says, frowning for a moment. "Switch positions, maybe? Me on the bed, you on top of me?"

"Holy shit," Dex breathes, "god, yes."

Derek lays on his side and rolls onto his back while Dex sits up. He pauses on his knees, looking down at Derek. "I kind of want to take my shirt off right now," Dex says.

"I am so on board with that," Derek says immediately. Dex's shirt is off before Derek's finished speaking, flung somewhere across the room. He's pale and freckled across his shoulders, and seeing that in the locker room is nothing like seeing it now, up close as Dex settles between Derek's legs and leans down to kiss him again.

Derek doesn't take it slow; part of him is thinking _take what you can just in case_ , and the rest of him can't hold back, can't go for finesse, can't think past the pressure of Dex on top of him, Dex's hands sliding up his shirt, Dex mouthing his way down his jaw so he can suck a mark high on Derek's neck.

"Jesus," Derek says, sharp and fervent. He drags his fingers up Dex's back, marking out muscle and bone and the broad sweep of his shoulders. Dex mouths his way to Derek's shoulder, and when Derek slides a hand up to the back of Dex's neck, Dex grinds down and bites at the same time.

Derek groans and bucks his hips, chasing the friction as Dex pulls away. "Can I," Dex says, breathing like he does after a good skate, the same exhilarated look on his face as when he got an assist a few games ago. "I want to get your shirt off too."

"Yeah, good," Derek says. He props himself up a little while Dex slides his shirt up, hands hot and firm on Derek's back, bracing him so he doesn't have to support all of his weight as he wrestles his shirt over his head.

Dex swears as Derek lets his shirt drop to the bed behind him. Derek's torso is still pretty much a mess, swirling black and blue and green patches where he'd gotten hit. "That looks fucking awful, Nursey."

"Thanks," Derek says dryly. "I can put my shirt back on if it's that gross."

"No," Dex says immediately. He helps Derek back to the bed, then kisses him briefly before sliding down. He sucks kisses against Derek's neck, and all Derek can do is gasp and try to thread his fingers into Dex's too-short hair as Dex keeps going, going, his mouth leaving feather-light kisses across the worst of the bruising, his fingertips pressing into Derek's shoulders like Derek is grounding him somehow.

"Dex," Derek says weakly, because there's only so much he can take, and between the physicality of what they're doing and the - the _emotion_ of it, he knows he's near his own edge. "C'mon, please."

"Yeah," Dex breathes, right near Derek's navel. Dex kisses him there, lips against soft skin, and when he lets go of Derek's shoulder so he can reach between them and rub his palm against Derek, that's it, that's what he needed.

Derek shouts and bucks, and it's only Dex's hand on his shoulder that reminds him to at least try not to move too much. Dex keeps rubbing at him and mouthing at his stomach until Derek bats at his head, and then Dex moves up, up, and kisses Derek like he wants to devour him.

"Hey, hey," Derek says when he can think again. "Dex, let me, come on."

Dex grunts and jerks his hips a little, and Derek can feel the hard line of him through their pants. Derek shifts until he can bend his leg up, get it right between Dex's legs, give him something to ride against. It gets him a much better noise and the view of Dex's eyes falling half-shut as he grinds down. Derek grins and gets a hand back into Dex's hair, turning his head so Derek can kiss just beneath his ear.

"Hey," Derek says softly, right against the skin of Dex's neck. "You gonna come?"

Dex pulls in a shuddering breath and lets it out with a long, low moan. He holds himself still for a few seconds before starting to shake.

Derek licks at his neck. "Come on," he coaxes. "C'mon, Dex, you gotta come for me." He slides his hand Dex's back and palms his ass through his jeans.

"Shit, _Derek_ ," Dex gasps out, grinding down against Derek's leg hard before shuddering even harder than that. His head drops down next to Derek's on the pillow, and after a moment in which Derek braces himself for Dex's inevitable collapse, Dex kind of tips off and lands across Derek's arm.

Derek can't roll over, can barely find the energy to reach up and kind of pet at Dex's hair. "You good?"

" _Shit_ ," Dex says weakly. "We just had sex."

Derek opens his mouth to affirm, because yeah, and if Dex needs convincing that they should do it again Derek is up for that challenge, but Dex adds, " _On your roommate's bed_."

Derek snaps his mouth shut for a moment, but he can't help it; he starts laughing. Dex joins him a moment later, and soon they're just laughing outright, both of them half-naked and completely a mess, and it's honestly the best Derek has felt in a long time, bruises and cracked ribs and all.

"I'll buy him a new duvet cover," Derek finally manages, turning his head to grin at Dex, who's grinning back at him. "Don't worry. He'll never notice."

**Author's Note:**

> lalalala titles with double meanings lalalalala (johnson voice: sorry, spoilers)
> 
> "I can feel you trying to make that text message smiley face with your actual face" might be my new favorite line that i've written, can't lie.
> 
> also let's play "how much of an english major nerd is derek nurse" by seeing how many random references to either literature or poetry i've thrown in. winner gets more dex/nursey, but let's be real here, that makes us all winners. also nobody has to play, because there'll be more. c'mon. you had to figure that at this point.
> 
> [follow me on tumblr](http://somehowunbroken.tumblr.com) for ridiculous headcanons about derek nurse.


End file.
